


The Long Shadow

by JTHM_Michi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Tatooine Slave Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6382090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JTHM_Michi/pseuds/JTHM_Michi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Anakin pauses for a few more moments in the temple during Order 66, remembers a little of his root culture, and decides that he's not going to slaughter a bunch of children today. </p>
<p>Originally posted to my tumblr, cleaned up and changed a little to be put up here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> So I was thinking about how much the slaughter of the younglings at the Jedi Temple destroys my soul, as one does, and then I decided: Hey, what if Anakin had paused for a little bit longer and didn’t slaughter all those kids? And then I thought “no, don’t write this, you don’t - WHY ARE YOU TYPING, STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!”  
> So here is a stream of contentiousness piece where Anakin doesn’t lose the plot but everything still hurts. But not as much! Also a little bit of Tatooine slave culture which is built on a lot of the ideas from fialleril but also some of my own because I didn’t want to completely absorb her ideas, even though they are wonderful.

“Master Skywalker – ”

_“Execute all Jedi as traitors to the Republic.”_

There are no masters in the council room and he is in a ruined city, where is his unit?

Padmé is dying, she’s in pain, and her heart is beating too fast.

His mother is holding Ahkura in her arms, the girl is screaming. The sand is battering their hovel of a home, the cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, she can’t breathe, and Ahkura wants it to stop. The baby has no future that he can see. 

There’s blaster fire and agony, hot and burning in the back of his mind.

“- there are too many of them!”

_“I am proud of you, Anakin.”_

Master Windu is enraged, horrified, and terrified – how unlike him. And then he is gone, a swirl of pain and remorse.

_“I love you, Anakin, you’re mine.”_  Padmé murmurs, clutching at his shoulders as she moves. He kisses her, moaning into her mouth, because yes he’s hers; he’ll always be hers, only hers. She’s so happy it’s making his head spin, so utterly content and in love with him, he can feel everything and for once he allows it all to crash down into him. He surrenders to this storm, trusting that Padmé won’t suffocate him.

The desert never forgives and never forgets.

“What are we going to do?”

He is in the Temple.

(He has never left the desert)

His head hurts, his chest hurts, everything is so loud – he’s never heard a louder bunch die.

The sand rattled with every slash of his lightsaber, the Mother of Mothers roaring in his shared pain and agony. They killed his Amu, they weren’t even  _real_ , they didn’t die in flashes of light and emotions just dispersed like the tar that spawned them. They sucked up precious water and contaminated it,  _they weren’t even real but they have children, doesn’t that make them real?_

Padmé will die. He can save her only with his master’s help.

Masters don’t allow marriages.

He ignites his lightsaber and feels the children flinch away from him, fear creeping into the space between the splitting pain behind his eyes and the red, pulsing haze of the feedback against the back of his skull. He must save her, he can’t let her die, and he can’t be alone

Why does everyone leave?

The door behind him slides open and Anakin turns on instinct, swinging his lightsaber and screaming. His clones always die suddenly and with only the phantom touch that they were ever there, and he has always hated feeling it. He slices and howls and muscle memory takes over as he redirects blaster fire.

He feels like he’s been out in a storm too long with no protection, choking on sand and wind and the heaving cries of the Mother of Mothers. She has a name but he has forsaken it as he did his Amu and his chains.

The Force rolls through his body, yanking him back into the room and slamming the door shut. He has stopped screaming and cannot breathe. The children – the younglings – are frightened and some of them are crying. But if they are crying then they are alive. Crying has always been a good sign, a life sign. You cry to show you are alive.

His child will cry soon, will come into the world crying and alive. Children follow the mother and Padmé is free, their child will be free, their child will be as wonderful and beautiful as the setting sun.

The younglings crowd around him, all of them hugging him or touching him somehow, there’s only about a dozen of them, and they all sit on the floor of the council room and sob.

How many more will die? When will the screaming stop?

O’heleia was a Chosen, like he was, a child with rage and chains. She threw her chains off and reformed them into twin blades that sang with vengeance and the light from Galenena, the slave’s moon. She could feel all her people in chains, kept them safe from the fire of her rage, and when she decimated their masters no slaves were killed. She was a Chosen, she kept her people safe. 

Can he keep his people safe? Who  _are_  his people? His Amu is dead, he has no ties to Tatooine anymore, and he has pushed aside his language and customs. Who is he now without them?

“Master Skywalker?” One of the younglings whispers, the same one who spoke the first time, the one who has pillowed his head against Anakin’s shoulder. Anakin reaches up to stroke his hair, mind whirling in a million directions. It was hard to think clearly, but then again it had been hard to think clearly for a long time now.

Things he knew:

Palpatine was Darth Sidious. The 501st were storming the Temple and killing everyone in it. His name was Anakin Skywalker and he was married to Padmé Naberrie, known as Amidala. They were having a child together. He had been having dreams of her dying in childbirth and would save her life if it killed him. He came to the temple to kill the very same children all around him. Padmé would not forgive him for this, but she would be alive and isn’t that better than anything? They won’t be together, he’ll never see his child, but she will live and that is worth anything.

The floor rumbled underneath them as a bomb went off somewhere. The younglings in this room were scared and trying to hide it, the younglings hidden in the Room of a Thousand Fountains were planning a last stand and were resigned to their deaths, there were young padawans making for the outside, righteous anger and fierce pride in their minds as they swung their lightsabers and tried to leave. They would be shot. And then there was the lowest level of the temple, where the infants and much smaller children were kept, they knew something was happening and it was big and scary and they were confused.

Children are real and he gave up his Amu and her people to be a Jedi. That makes them his people, he has to protect them – he is a Chosen, he can do nothing else.

“O’heleia, grant me the strength I need to do what I must.” He murmured and the words sound strange in Basic. He sinks into the Force, stretching himself out: he will protect his people. He is a Chosen, he cannot be a slave anymore. Not ever again.

Not even if it will save the life of the only person he’s ever loved.

_‘Mother of Mothers protect her, for I cannot.’_

And then he is everywhere and nowhere.

* * *

 

Zam’s hand is shaking and she wishes her master were here. Below her, Clone Troopers are marching through the room, blasters held at the ready. She knows they’ll look up soon enough; there’s only so long she can hide everyone from them, but all they need is the element of surprise. She looks to Bal-Am, who nods at her once, and then she takes a deep breath. There are twenty-five Clone Troopers that she can see and there are only five of them – it’s not bad odds for Jedi, but there are no Jedi here – she’s barely a padawan. The other four aren’t old enough to be chosen as padawans – Tyuth has another year in the crèche before he can be chosen and he’s the oldest.

They’re all going to die here, there’s no denying that fact.

She drops from her hiding place, yanking the Force away as cleanly as possible, and ignites her lightsaber. It hums to life for the first time - it’s so much heavier than the practice sabers - and she swings it into the armor at the back of the nearest Clone Trooper. The soft green cuts through the soldier and before the two pieces – she’s killed him, she’s killed someone, she’s going to be  _sick_  – fall to the ground there’s blaster fire headed her way.

She cries out when one tears into her shoulder before she twirls around and cuts the arm off a nearby trooper. At her left, Tyuth jumps at a trooper, weaponless, and uses his claws to physically tear the soldier’s head from his shoulders. Bal-Am has picked up a blaster and is using it to great effect, but there’s already a small body floating in one of the fountains.

_Zam, don’t think of it_  whispers across her mind and she feels a phantom hand enclose around her shoulder, physically pulling her out of the line of fire and next to two Clone Troopers. Her arm swings in a complicated arc and she somehow manages to behead them both at once.

“Master Skywalker?” She asks, elated and somewhat frightened. That wasn’t her moving her body but if Master Skywalker is here that must mean they are saved! She’s only heard of him from others in the temple but she’s studied his forms and strategies.

_Zam, shhhh, let me_  comes again, that whisper of comfort, and then she’s not in control of her body at all. She watches through her own eyes as she moves with fluidity and certainty. She cuts through the Clone Troopers, using the Force to push Lahaneil out of harm’s way, and within moments it’s over. She’s in the center of body parts and she holds her hand out to the main entrance to the room, closing the door and locking it tight. She understands that she’s crushed the locking gears so the door would have to be blown open, it would give them enough time to bring the marble walls down to block the door when it comes to that.

_Stay here, you’re safe here_  comes to her mind and then she has control of herself again. She’s shaking and drops her lightsaber before bending over to vomit. Eckerl is the one who pulls her away from the mess and helps her sit down, the little Tholothian crawling into her lap. Zam wraps her arms around the younger girl and shakes, sick with her body and the things it has done.

* * *

 

A hand brushes her hair away from her temple and she beams, heart jumping into her throat at the touch. Her husband bends over her to kiss the corner of her smile and she turns onto her back to greet him properly - 

She jerks awake at her desk. 

“Ani?” She murmurs but he doesn’t answer her. The apartment is dark and silent. She wipes a bit of drool off her chin - how embarrassing, drooling in her sleep at this age - and heaves herself up. Her knees protest the weight but she was expecting that. She stays in place for a few moments, waiting for the nausea to pass, and then shuffles into her bedroom. 

It’s so empty and cold without Anakin. She only ever notices it when she’s alone like this, in the dark and feeling their child tumbling inside of her. She closes her eyes, reaching a hand up to touch her face, and tries to imagine Anakin’s hand instead. She leans into the touch, breathing slowly and does not let herself sigh. 

Whenever he returns from his missions now, he greets her with a kiss and touches her stomach. The first time he felt their child move against his palm he’d laughed like he was that little boy she’d first met, eyes delighted, and swept her up into his arms. After the war, once the Order didn’t need every able body they had, he was going to leave. Her term would be up shortly and they could stop hiding, could be a family in the open. He could take her hand in public and she could kiss him whenever she pleased, tell people that he was hers, could leave her marks on his neck and jaw.  

The sound of an explosion causes her to jump in alarm. She whips around and rushes back to the sitting room, horror in her throat. The Separatists couldn’t possibly - 

There was smoke coming from the Jedi Temple. A fire raged along some of the lower levels, where she knew the library and archives were kept, and some of the living quarters. 

“Anakin!”

* * *

 He stretches himself out along the temple, flinging the Force around him as he does, locking and crushing doors to hide what few younglings and padawans remained alive in the building. He destroys a stairway here and shifts a wall there, making the layout confusing. He splatters the blood of Clone Troopers across the walls and floors, flings their corpses whichever way he feels, and he’s never let himself go this far before. He’s annihilated his own unit and he can feel more of them coming, the thrum of their steady minds overrun with one single, unified order –  _eradicate, eradicate_.

_My people, they want to kill my people_  Anakin seethes, enraged and near possessed by a visceral anger that’s as old as the desert sands that bore him. A Chosen he is, a Chosen’s anger flowing through him, and he uses it to sweep the fire the 501st set upon the temple to block the main entrance. Jedi are burned in death and he throws the fire down the walkway where so many dead potential Jedi lie, engulfing them in flames. He will protect the children.

At the tail end of that decision a crushing force comes to tear at his mind. Sharp claws and blunt teeth rake at his mental shields, Sidious crashing upon them with the rage of betrayal and wasted time.

**Vader you disappoint me**

And Anakin snarls, not even sure if it’s with his own mouth or just his mind, the slave-name settling into his bones in a way that gives him the strength to beat back Sidious’ presence. He rips the teeth from the vision before his shields, peels the claws away, and then he is rolling under pressure and sand and the vacuum of space.

He kills the Tuskins again and again, feeling each death as if it were his own, feeling his Amu die in his arms over and over again. He cannot see her face or remember her last words and the next time he slices a Tuskin child open he turns the blade and stabs himself in the heart.

He’s lost concentration on the fire, let it get too out of control, and he pushes at it again, twisting it back into a barrier. He ghosts his mind across the infant’s minds, calming them and soothing them as best he can, and then surges back down the spiral in his mind that connects him to Sidious.

He comes with twin blades made of shadows and cackling energy, something purer than mere anger and hate. Sidious presses a memory of hands holding his small body down and trying to take from him things he didn’t want to give and Anakin slices through the memory and hurls the feeling of Obi-Wan’s praise.

In the darkness, a Sith Lord bleeds.

The Mother of Mothers was buried deep in the sands, chained by the First Master and had all her children stolen from her. She cannot weep for them so instead she screams and her bellows become sandstorms. Her rage shakes the planet and her grief makes it so nothing fragile can grow. She reforms her favored child when she can take no more and sends them down and they become Chosen.

He is not special, he is just a favored child sent to help free his siblings. He is not special because everyone is special.

Sidious roars and drags Anakin down with chains wrapped around his neck. Anakin laughs, whirling his blades and cutting himself free. The first time he felt his child move under his palm was one of the happiest moments in his life and as he flings it out, Sidious swipes at him like an enraged rancor. He feels like something has broken inside, like a bone or something equally sturdy, but Anakin has fought on with broken bones before.

**You have no hope of defeating me, whelp. I know more about the Dark Side then you ever will**.

His voice cuts into Anakin, a million slices cutting him open, and he drowns in the pain for a time. It could be days or seconds or years or minutes. A memory of his toenails being pulled up and out crashes into him, followed by the image of Padmé ripped open before him, belly as empty as her eyes. He grabs for that image, curling around it, and then –

_“Something wonderful has happened.”_  Her voice breathless and a touch scared, her eyes bright and excited, and she’s so nervous he finds himself worried more than ever. _“Ani, I’m pregnant.”_  And he can’t think, can’t breathe for a moment, that’s – that’s – elation and sheer, golden pride overtakes him. Pregnant. They’re going to have a baby.

He folds the memory into the image of Padmé’s corpse and hurls it like a thermal detonator. It explodes and a cascade of light and warmth floods the space. He gathers up his mother’s hugs, Obi-Wan’s deep laugh, the feeling when he solves a particularly hard math equation, and the touch of Padmé’s hands on his face and drives them all into the writhing mess that is Sidious.

_YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY CHILDREN FROM ME!_  And he means all of them: his own, the ones surrounding his body, the ones burning under a blanket of fire, and all the ones in the future that will be born. They are all his people, all his children, and he will not let their futures be taken from them.

His twin blades sing as he drives them down into Sidious, twisting through what feels like flesh, bone and metal alike. Everything hurts.

He’s jolted back into his own mind and his own body abruptly. The Clone Troopers have stood down, the fire has been put out, and he’s sprawled on the council floor with his head in a youngling’s lap. He can’t really see colors when he opens his eyes and his head feels like it’s trying to collapse in on itself.

“Master Skywalker, it’s okay.” The boy pillowing his head says and there’s hands stroking through his hair. Small hands. He licks his lips, trying to force his mouth to form words.

“Safe?” He manages to get out finally, after much slurring.

“Yes, we’re safe now.”

He lets himself fall into unconsciousness.

* * *

 

Padmé is here, he can feel her – she’s worried and upset, almost to the point where she goes cold and her eyes take on that steely glint that usually means she’s about to reach for a blaster. He tries to pull himself back into consciousness, wanting to soothe her, but it’s really hard and everything is still so muddled.

She’s alive, she’s safe, he’s so relieved he could curl into a ball and sob. He stretches himself out a little, needing a more complete picture of the situation, and is flooded. The younglings are still in various forms of wary shock, there are still Jedi running and dying in the wide spaces of the universe, Obi-Wan is hurt, Master Tyrum is cutting through his unit and is surrounded by darkness, there’s a couple breaking up on Thrui avenue, Master Yoda is grieving and trying to force it all away into the Force, Dex’s diner is swarming with people desperate for information, and on and on it goes.

It’s all too much, he’s back on Tatooine listening to the chaos of the desert and the agony of the roots as water is squeezed out of them.

“Center your mind, Skywalker.” Mace Windu – weakened, battered, but alive – says warily. He still doesn’t trust Anakin, thinks of him as a wild, unstoppable calamity that almost destroyed them all. He’s not wrong in his assessment.

He’s thinking of his own padawan, dead on a planet far from here, about how he should have fought more to stay out of this civil war altogether, how he should have known that anyone Anakin trusted and liked so much was a threat. He’s angry with himself for being played so utterly well and wary of where that anger will lead him. He wishes he could kill the threat in front of him, but there’s a senator standing not three feet from the threat and he can’t bring himself to waste so much energy to force her to leave.

Anakin shoves himself into a sitting position, mind slamming back mostly into place, and Master Windu pushes against the force-shove he’s given, managing to stay standing through what looks like sheer stubbornness.

“Don’t you dare!” Anakin spits out, the world is spinning. His wife says his name, reaching for him, and he falls into her side easily. She has two blasters on her, a knife tipped with a very deadly poison buried in her hair, and she’s made sure no less than ten reporters saw her dashing into the Temple. She’s covered all the bases getting here and he’s proud of her.

She runs her fingers through his hair and he concentrates on that sensation. Her fingers are slender and short, her nails neatly trimmed, and her palms smooth. Her index finger on her left hand, the one not in his hair, is crooked from a break she got as a young girl. It healed wrong and instead of getting it fixed she just left it as is because it gave her hands character. When he grips that hand in his own, he can’t even tell it’s out of alignment.

“Center your mind before it scatters again.” Windu urges, standing apart from them. He knows about them, knows the child inside Padmé is his, and Anakin presses his face into his wife’s neck trying to shut him out. Windu’s disappointed but also smug in the way that means he was right about something.

Obi-Wan drops out of his awareness completely and Anakin sobs against Padmé, terrified that he’s dead. She shifts so she’s sitting more on the bed he’s in, pulling him against her, rubbing his back and still petting his hair. He reaches for her mentally even as he sinks into her embrace. She’s so scared for him, worried about how emotional he is right now, about what they’re going to do when he’s kicked out of the Order (because he will be, the secret is very firmly out of the bag), about the black and blue bruises lining his arms and the broken rib that he himself wasn’t even aware of until she thought about it. She’s worried about the Republic, about what they’re going to do now that it’s been revealed that Palpatine is a Sith Lord and was already in the process of turning the Republic into a dictatorship. That’s news to him but not exactly shocking. She’s thinking about how she’s going to explain herself to her parents, whom she didn’t even inform of her pregnancy, about how they’re going to find out via the Holonet because she ran over here in clothes that didn’t hide her very large stomach. There will be no way that anyone can spin that as anything other than what it is.

She’s horrified that she almost lost him. What would have happened to their child if he was dead? She knows their child will be Force-sensitive, she can sense it already, how would she have been able to look at them without thinking of Anakin and possibly projecting her grief onto a small child? What if she had a boy with his hair and eyes and goofy smile – would she grow to hate her own child for the resemblance? Would she hate him more than she hated herself if it came to that? What if she had a girl with his laugh and pout, would she always be thinking about how much he would have spoiled her? Would she drown their child in her grief over his loss?

He pulls away from her gently, pressing his forehead against hers. His arms ache and he thinks his mechanical hand isn’t even attached, but he manages to put his arms around her anyway. He can’t kiss her here; he’ll bury himself inside her mind and not come out for ages if he does, but this he can do. He can calm her this way, can reassure her that he is here and safe, that she is with him and safe, that they are connected. He is hers and she is his and they are their own people with no masters – they are safe with each other, here in the space between them where his breath becomes hers.

“You would love them and go on.” He murmurs to her and she shudders against him, not because she’s upset with him but because she’s glad she didn’t have to try and articulate her thoughts and fears to him. That he still understands her better than anyone else, knows her that he can tell her things like that so simply.

“Not to step on your moment, but your ribs are going to heal wrong if you keep sitting up like that.” Windu says, completely destroying the moment and Padmé pulls away from him, annoyed with the other man. She helps him back down, because now that he’s not so much in everyone’s heads he realizes his body does in fact feel like he’s thrown it into a blender and then had it stomped on for good measure.

“How are you here?” Anakin asks once he’s settled because so far just accepting that Master Windu is here isn’t actually helping him adjust to it.

“The grace of the Force and a really annoyed Zorbelda. I landed atop their cruiser and they took me to a medcenter against my wishes. Surprise, I’m not dead.” Windu deadpans and Anakin stares at him – he knew the older man had a sense of humor, Obi-Wan told him so, but to see it on display was very jarring.

“When more of the Jedi return here, notably when Master Yoda returns, we’re having a long discussion on your place in the Order.” Windu says and pushes off the wall to leave. “Also, congratulations on your kid, I guess.”

“I’m not sure if I want to smack him because I’m tired and stressed or because he deserves it.” Padmé says and Anakin turns to look at her. She has shadows around her eyes and the corners of her lips are bitten.

“Padmé, you should get some rest.” He tells her and she turns to look down at him for a few long moments.

“You’ve been unconscious for the better part of two days. The first day I spent mostly at the senate, dealing with the political mess and forcing through orders for the Clone Troopers to stand down. We elected a new interim chancellor and took away the emergency powers and loosened some trade and taxation laws that were put into place. I left the senate when word reached me that Master Windu was seen going into the Temple and when I managed to force my way inside, you were here. The children say you saved their lives and I’m so proud of you, but if you ever do anything like this ever again I will be very, very upset with you.” She says quietly, leaning down to press their foreheads back together, the closest they can get to kissing right now.

“I love you.” He tells her. He wants to kiss her.

“I love you, too.”

He closes his eyes and feels her curl up next to him, and he’s very glad that his broken rib is on his other side.

* * *

 

It’s late, or perhaps very early, when Anakin feels Obi-Wan again. Padmé is still asleep, dreaming of the lake at Varykino, and he has categorized every bit of his sleeping wife over the last hour. The sick, dragging darkness he’s sensed from her for months now, ever since he started dreaming about her dying in childbirth, has lifted and her heartbeat is finally at the fast pace it was before the dreams. He trails his fingers over her stomach, feeling the children resting there, and marvels at the low shock he still feels at their presence. Two hearts, two minds – how could he have missed that for so long?

How could Palpatine have hid them so well from him? What, exactly, was he doing to Padmé that it was actively slowing her heartbeat down and draining so much of her energy? What was the purpose of actively killing her, taking her and his children from him? Simply to turn him to the dark side? But how would he have kept Anakin there without something to hold over him, something to chain him down in the darkness? So many questions and not enough answers.

And it’s on the tail end of that thought, when Obi-Wan touches down onto Coruscant and Anakin can feel him again. The rush of joy, relief, shame, and fear that takes him doesn’t take him by surprise but the answering warmth of pride and love from Obi-Wan does – the dizzying amount of love, of joy, of sadness, of soothing thoughts so the shame in Anakin dissipates brings tears to his eyes and makes it hard to breathe for a few moments.

“Obi-Wan.” He sobs into Padmé’s hair, trying to calm down so he doesn’t wake her up. His broken rib twinges at his gasping but he can’t stop. Obi-Wan presses calm and warmth down to him, like phantom fingers through his hair, and he sniffs. Padmé’s hair smells like cut open starblossoms, the gentle, almost rain-like smell of the fruit, and the lingering ashy smell of cigarra that he’s always associated with the senate chamber. He’s getting tears all over her hair but luckily no snot, that would be more embarrassment then he could deal with right at this moment.

Padmé stirs in his grip and in her dreams she turns in the water, calling for him. He takes a few deep breaths, lets the pain from his broken rib distract him enough to get the tears to stop, and nudges the dream she’s having into happier territory. Padmé’s dream-version of him appears at her side, grinning at her and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, challenging her to a race.

The new, almost there mind of one of his children brushes against him. He jolts at the feeling, staring down at Padmé’s stomach in shock and delight. One of his babies is trying to comfort him! He puts his palm over her stomach, sending the delight and love he feels for them both towards the barely there mind, pulling their mother’s serene calm and contentment down with him. Under his hand, there’s a little kick and then the feeling of simple joy and rightness.

“I can’t wait to meet you.” He whispers to them, still dumbstruck.

By the Force, he almost lost all three of them.  He wants to curl around Padmé but now that he’s given attention to his ribs they burn and ache too much for him to consider hunching like that. He brushes a last kiss to Padmé’s forehead before closing his eyes and forcing himself to sleep. Obi-Wan will come when he has time and Anakin needs rest.

* * *

 

The HoloNews is divided into two stories: the fact that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, devised the entire war, was planning on turning the republic into dictatorship, and was planning to slaughter all the Jedi via the clone troopers by overriding their free will vs the fact that Padmé Amidala is pregnant and apparently married to Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear. He’s not sure why his marriage and future children is as important as the horrifying news of Palpatine but that’s the news cycle for you.

 “I can’t believe our marriage is getting this much attention.” Padmé says as yet another reporter talks about what their marriage means in regards to the political fallout following Palpatine’s betrayal and subsequent fleeing from justice. The youngling sprawled across her legs giggles and Anakin throws a pillow at them automatically. The youngling freezes it in midair and floats it back to him, a look of intense concentration on their face.

 “Good job, Cordy.” Anakin praises her and the little girl beams at him. His mouth twitches at the sight but he suddenly imagines himself cutting her down and feels like vomiting.

 “I think it’s the spectacular way you handled the reporter who asked you if you knew who the father was that’s causing it.” Obi-Wan says dryly from the small kitchenette in his rooms where they’re all currently hiding from the outside world.

 “ _If_  she knew who the father was? What the kriff is that supposed to mean?” Anakin snaps. Little Cordelia gasps at his language and Padmé says his name disapprovingly.

 “I think Anakin might need to go back to sleep.” Obi-Wan says, his own brand of disapproval, and Anakin grits his teeth. He can feel a headache coming on and the nausea from his own imagination isn’t making things better.  Obi-Wan hands him a mug of tea and Anakin settles back against the pillows, drinking deeply.

 The reporter switches to a holo-recording of a gala from months ago where Anakin and Obi-Wan had been working security. The recording is the same few frames looped of Anakin spinning Padmé around the dance floor, the short dance they managed to squeeze in as the gala was wrapping up. At the time, no one had raised a fuss about the short dance as it was well known that Padmé was close with the Jedi but now it was being used to support Padmé’s claims that they were married.

 “This just in!” The reporter says loudly and that gets everyone’s attention. “We have just received holo-recordings from the senate that show Senator Amidala welcoming her husband home after a tour on the front lines!”

 And then he’s watching as a recording pops up of him running to Padmé to hug her, lifting her up to spin her around, and then set her back on her feet to kiss her. The distance from where the camera was makes it look like they’re lost in each other as he continues to kiss her until they finally just go back to hugging, which really looks more like desperate clinging from a distance. Judging by their clothes and the location, he’s willing to bet that was the day Padmé told him she was pregnant – the scariest, best day of his life.

 “How in the seven Norns did you manage to fool anyone into thinking you two weren’t a thing?” Obi-Wan asks, sounding slightly dazed as the reporter pops back up to discuss the date of the recording and speculate how long they had been married at that point. Cordelia sighs and Padmé laughs at the question.

 “Are you seriously trying to say you didn’t at least suspect about us?” Anakin asks the ceiling, because he’s sure that Obi-Wan has known since the beginning about them. It was one of the reasons why Palpatine was able to manipulate him so easily, the fear that if Anakin did something wrong that Obi-Wan would take that knowledge straight to the other Masters and then Anakin would be homeless, jobless, and without any prospects. He thinks, now, that most of that fear was manufactured by Palpatine himself.

 “I suspected you were having an affair, not married with a child on the way!” Obi-Wan protested.

 “An affair – Obi-Wan, what do you take me for?!” Anakin squawks as Padmé bursts out laughing again.

 “You should give a press conference.” Cordelia interrupts whatever response Obi-Wan was going to give.

 “Why would I do that?” Anakin asks the girl, confused. She rolls off Padmé’s lap and gets to her knees to look up at him seriously.

 “So people know the truth about you two and can stop wasting their time thinking about it. Maybe if they know all of it, they can concentrate on the former Supreme Chancellor.” She explains.

 “She has a point –the reason this is such a news story is because I told off a crass reporter and then rushed here. We haven’t said anything since.” Padmé says and has Obi-Wan help her up off the ground to shuffle to the refresher. He tilts his head back again, staring at the ceiling and thinking it over.

 It’s not a horrible idea. He’s wanted nothing more than to be able to shout that he’s married to the love of his life since about an hour after the married was made legal. He’s wanted to be able to hold her hand in public, kiss her in public, and call her “Lady Skywalker” outside the comfort of their apartment for years now. The entire Order already knows about them now and he’s going to be expelled once they end their current session, he’s sure, so why not?

 “Maybe.” Is all he says though.

* * *

 

 The press conference goes well, in that Anakin doesn’t Force choke or punch anyone in the face and Padmé doesn’t verbally flay any of the reporters alive. They give the bare minimum of their story – that they met during the Trade Federation’s occupation of Naboo, that they’ve been married pretty much for the entire duration of the war, and that they kept the marriage a secret since Jedi aren’t supposed to form attachments. Padmé leans against his side and holds his hand and it’s the best press conference he’s ever given.

As they’re leaving he kisses her because he can and doesn’t even give a shit that every reporter goes mad.


End file.
